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SAILING AS A SPORT | Part 3 of 3: François Gabart

Photo: O.Blanchet

Photo: O.Blanchet

…Continued from here

François Gabart did it again. He crossed the finish line of a singlehanded transatlantic sailing race in first position.

At 33 years of age he is a very young French sailor and like Mozart, Picasso or Messi, he is a true genius. Never had the world of singlehanded sailing seen such a talented sailor at such a young age.

As a kid François sailed around the Atlantic with his family for a year, that’s where he developed his passion for sailing. He won a lot of races on small boats as a youngster, while securing an engineering degree, but it’s singlehanded on big boats that François became a star at before he even reached 30 years of age: a rare thing in the world of sailing where experience is key.

Photo: Jean Marie Liot

Photo: Jean Marie Liot

In 2011, at 27, he takes part to the Transat B to B, his first transatlantic race on his monohull Macif and wins it.

In 2013, he takes part to the Vendee Globe, considered the toughest singlehanded sailing race around the world on the same boat, and wins it on his first try, after an incredible duel against Armel Le Cleach, the runner up of the previous edition.

In 2014, nobody can beat him as he crosses the Atlantic victoriously during his first Route du Rhum, still on Macif.

Photo: Stephane Mahe

Photo: Stephane Mahe

The Vendee Globe and the Route du Rhum enjoy large media coverage in France and Gabart is now a prominent figure in the world of French sports. Because of his young age, blond hair, blue eyes and incredible achievements, the media nicknamed him “Le Petit Prince”. That’s cute and it makes a good magazine cover, but what the general public often doesn’t know is that François is an extremely hard working technician. He is very much involved in every stage of the design and building of his boats. He asks a lot of questions and writes everything down. He is the combination of a scientist and an athlete with the mental strength of a warrior.

Photo: Vincent Curutchet

Photo: Vincent Curutchet

François Gabart has already won everything on his 60ft monohull. In 2013 he convinces his sponsor to build a giant: a 100ft trimaran (30m).

Vincent Curutchet

Photo: Vincent Curutchet

This completely different type of boat is a whole new ball game. Everything is bigger and requires even more physical energy. Rolling a sail in and unfurling another one out is equivalent to a hardcore one hour gym session, and has to be done up to 10 times a day. The handling of these giants also comes with a new dramatic factor: the stress level is much higher that on monohulls, as these multihulls reach hallucinating speeds of 40knots (80km/h) and can easily tip over.

Photo: Vincent Curutchet

Photo: Vincent Curutchet

But François enjoys a challenge and after another incredible duel, this time against Thomas Coville a 48-year-old expert at sailing these multihull giants, he crossed the finish line of The Transat Bakerly in first position last Wednesday. On his first try. Mind-blowing.

Photo: Y. Riou

Photo: Y. Riou

SAILING AS A SPORT |Part 1 of 3 : What is it like to race sailboats?

 

Over the years I have become a cruiser. I use my boat Dali as a home, and to travel the seas for leisure, discovering amazing coastlines, new countries and cultures. But my passion for sailing first came from racing sailboats around buoys. Sailing as a sport is a whole different world compared to cruising. It is not the most popular sport out there, although to me, sailing is the most complete sport there is. read more

Boat People

We write a lot about beautiful beaches in this blog. Too much. It is true that we keep on discovering remote islands, their gorgeous sand laid out in front of their jungle, and we keep on marveling at the different shades of yellow, green and blue the nature offers us. But I worry that for our readers it all sounds the same.

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The nature is only half of the experience, the other half is the people we meet along the way. The different shades of characters we run into is often richer than all the colors the scenery has to offer.

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More specifically, I am always amazed at the variety of sailors we encounter during our travels, or “yachties” are they are called amongst the anglo-saxon sailing community. These are people who, like Iva and I, live on their boat. One often thinks of leisure yacht owners as wealthy people with a passion for varnished wood floating on water, but there is actually a whole spectrum of yachties.

They come from all over the world. The most common nationalities sailing around SE Asia are Australians, Americans, French, German and English. But we also meet sailors from Canada, South Africa, New Zealand, Brasil, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Turkey, Belgium, Argentina, Ireland, Czech Republic and Russia.

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The largest group represented is probably the retired couples in their sixties or seventies. These are usually wealthy people who had been sailing during their holidays in their home country, and decided to circumnavigate the world once retired. They’re usually the first owners of nice boats over 40 feet long, spend quite a bit of time in marinas and hire experienced people to do the maintenance. These couples are usually very welcoming and love to have young people on board to share their stories of long ocean crossings and grandchildren. What drives them is the love for sailing, travelling and meeting other sailors. Their boats are usually white, the stainless steel is shiny and they know a mechanic in every port. Their outboards engine always start on the first pull of the rope.

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On the other side of the spectrum you have the budget sailors. There is no age rule for this group, you meet relatively young sailors – I say relatively young as I am considered an infant in the sailing world at 34 years of age – as well as people in the seventies. They usually don’t have much money, spent the little they had to buy their boat and use the little they make to maintain it. They know how to fix everything on their floating house, and make a living fixing other people’s boats (that often belong the category above). Their hulls are usually colorful, and a lot of innovative DIY projects can be spotted on board, that saves them buying the expensive part from the expensive dealer. They are always looking for a new job; often leave their boat on anchor in a protected bay, go work in their home country for a few months and save enough money to last them until they run out again. What drives them is their love for self-suffiency. They love to live on the margins of society.

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Amongst this category you often meet the singlehanded sailors. They live and sail alone on their boat. They have spent so much time alone that they somewhat live in a parallel universe, where they are their own god and master. They love to meet people and chat. For hours on end.  They mix very well with the local communities, always making friends. It always seems they need to fill the void of people on their boat. And then they sail away, alone again.

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Some of these singlehanders  are quite eccentric characters, that could be categorized as sea bums. Their boats are tiny and messy. You wonder how they are still afloat, yet they have sailed across many oceans on them. They have long salty beards and walk barefeet. They usually don’t mind spending these long lonesome crossings alone at sea, removed from a society that they have trouble adjusting to. Their outboards never start on the first pull of the rope.

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And then there are the families. A lot of couples actually raise their children on board their boat from the youngest age. I’ve met families with up to four children on board! The children are always home-schooled. In families with a single child, he or she is usually extremely mature since they are only confronted to adults. What they gain in maturity they usually lack in social skills, as they are rarely confronted to children their age. These families on boats therefore often stick together so that their children can socialize. They usually have large boats, often catamarans with enough space for the children run around, and a steady income insured before they left everything to go sailing. Their boats are crowded with food, clothes, toys, homework notebooks and game boys.

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Another category of sailors you meet a lot are the captains and crews. They don’t own their boat but sail rich people’s boats around the world. Millionaires who only take a few weeks off every year to go sailing on their yacht, and have professionals take them to the next destination they would like to sail in the meantime. These sailors know a lot about boats, as much as the owners are clueless. They sail the boat in a different way than the people who own their boat. They are responsible for it, yet don’t necessarily have this astonishing bond that the owner-captain has with his ship.  They always seem freer and less worried. The boats they sail are always astonishing in size, maintenance level and sometimes in beauty.

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Obviously not all yachties fit perfectly in one of these categories. Some of them belong to none, some, to a few. Iva and I often wonder which type we are going to end up as…

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What unites all these different sailors is their passion for the sea, the sailing, the discovery of new countries and cultures. Despite their different backgrounds they are all in search for freedom, a special kind of freedom you can only find on the water. All of them also love that on the sea, you are your own master, no uninvited guest will come on board your boat. If you want peace, you just sail to the next deserted anchorage.

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What is interesting to note is that this yachtie community basically reproduces the models of society as we know it on land. There are the rich and the poor. The loners and the large families. The generous and the stingy. The open minded ones and the ones full of prejudice. The nice ones and the mean ones. The anal ones who meticulously take care of their boats everyday and the ones that seem to live in a dump. The sociable ones and the hermits. They’re just humans, but on the sea. The one big difference with the humans on land is whatever their background, whatever the relationship they have with each other, they will always, ALWAYS help out another boat in need. They will give each other a hand in the middle of the night if they see a boat dragging your onto the reef. They will tow each other through bad weather if the engine fails. They will combine their skills to repair a sinking ship. When it comes down to helping each other out, this community reproduces the true nature of sailors: they will never let another sailor down.

Phil

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Andaman Dream : Full Length Documentary

We are proud to present to you our finished documentary.

The documentary traces our first ever ocean crossing together, following our journey between Phuket and the Andaman Islands during February and March of 2013. The 35minute film shows glimpses of life aboard a sailboat during our four days on the way to Phuket and five days return crossing, as well as highlighting all the beautiful paradisiacal islands that we discovered during our month in India. Our message is simple but powerful: the idea that a dream, no matter how crazy it may seem, is achievable through hard work and strong will.

*Please know that there was a considerable loss of quality when uploading the video to You Tube. Please contact us if you would like a copy in perfect quality.

Andaman Dream Trailer

On February 10th, 2013, we embarked on our first open sea crossing.

Four days of nothing but watching the waves, the dolphins and the horizon brought us from Phuket to the Andaman Islands in India. There, we had the incredible chance to discover in almost complete solitude the uninhabited jewels that make up this group of Indian Ocean archipelagic islands in the Bay of Bengal.

Enjoy this trailer and keep an eye out for the full documentary, out October 23rd 2013 right here on our website!

Reflections

It was not easy to leave this corner of India that had us so eagerly engrossed. Returning from Cinque Island we fought against our visa deadline and tried hastily to squeeze a few more anchorages before returning to Phuket. We wanted to run on more beaches, see locals in sarees dancing on the sand and taste new native flavours. Chidiya-tapu and Port Blair bid us a colorful and warm farewell.

There are a lot of finer moments and small details of our trip to the Andaman Islands that have escaped our writing thus far. We have spoken of the incredibly beautiful, deserted beaches, the locals friendly and exotic and the fish plentiful and multi-colored… Yet as we began to conclude our tour of the islands I couldn’t help but feel that some of the more subtle yet significant discoveries had happened between our couple and within our selves.

As Phil set the sails and adjusted the wind-vane, the sun fell and we prepared for our night shifts. Unlike the first crossing, this time we had the moon to guide us during the early parts of the night. While Phil slept and the engine hummed loudly, I had the crescent moon as my companion and more than once danced on the deck looking at its bright yellow light. I danced, and stretched to stay awake during the hours of my vigil in the vast darkness. I admired the stars until my eyes lost focus and I began to see them move and blend and vibrate in the sky. Perhaps they are not called bewitching hours for nothing for it was during these moments that I found myself most exposed, more susceptible to the fantasies that sprung from the atramental night.

Took advantage of the lack of wind for a quick dip

During our crossing Phil and I would at times hardly see each other as the days passed. It was important that whenever someone was awake, the other was resting and regaining the energy necessary to take the next shift. I had more time to give in to my thoughts, no one to edit them for me and was left to indulge myself in my emotions, which fell and rose with the waves. At times I was exhilarated, in a trance with the music I blared from my headphones to help keep me awake. Other moments I was convinced we were on the verge of being in danger, that a strong gust of wind could at any moment catapult us into a disastrous squall… My heart beating loudly and my senses at once heightened from the nerves but dulled from the lack of sleep. I would stare at the soft orange light of our compass for hours on end, my eyes fixed on a range of three degrees until all else disappeared around me. Then dawn would come and with it an immense feeling of relief, followed by the overwhelming bliss of visits from dolphins and pilot whales.

Dolphins

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Pilot Whales

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Pilot Whale

Enjoying the few hours a day that I saw Phil, both of us awake and excited, me in awe of his growing, brilliant abilities as Captain. And sometimes sheer frustration, lack of wind and lack of movement for hours on end… Being pushed in the wrong direction by a current we can’t fight in heat we can’t escape. Night again: my eyes fixed on the sails and the compass when something bright flashes and in fear of it being lightning I look up immediately and instead see a meteor blazing across the stars.

Midnight as we see the first bright lights of fishermen appear on the horizon and we know we are closer to Thailand. Twilight as we approach Phuket and the silhouettes of the wooden boats with sleepy fishermen greet us and lure us closer to shore. Dawn breaks over Promthep Cape and lights up the Big Buddha who gives us the official welcome. Yindī t̂xnrạb

Iva

Above and Below

It was hard to leave Havelock Island. But we were already one week into our trip, and the Indian authorities only deliver a one-month visa for the Andaman Islands. The frustration of not being able to spend more time in paradise slowly started creeping in. We had to plan our trip accordingly. It wasn’t easy to find the balance between our yearning to visit as many islands as we could and the need to spend more than a couple of nights in the places we loved the most. With only three weeks left we made our way to our next stop, Inglis Island.

As perfect as Havelock Island had been, Inglis rewarded us with a striking convex stretch of white sand contrasting with the deep turquoise of the water. And we were alone. The island was ours. The excitement grew as we anchored in ten meters on sand. As soon as we dropped the anchor, we were greeted by a group of mouse deer feeding on the beach. The next surprise came from the sky as a very intense experience: a Coast Guard helicopter circling 30 meters above us! We made contact though the VHF radio, identified ourselves, confirmed we had properly checked in in Port Blair and were bid farewell with a lovely “Have fun…and be safe!”

We spent the next couple of days exploring the island: the beach, the forest and the gorgeous sand cliffs rising above the water. Their different shades of yellow would constantly change with the light and amaze us throughout the day; we were grateful to sit in the shade of its caves, protected enough from the harassing heat to contemplate the waves breaking on the outer reefs.

Land Art

Land Art

Mouse Deer Skull

Turtle Skull

Again, it was hard to leave, but we had to stay on schedule. We motored north against a strong breeze and a choppy sea to reach North Button Island.

We both expected a lot from this tiny island as we had read that it was vibrant with sea life. Iva wanted to see manta rays. I was pretty excited about the fishing.

North Button Island from the Water

North Button Island from the Water

Iva hunts for photos, while Phil hunts for food! Here, a beautiful but very poisonous Lion Fish

Iva hunts for photos, while Phil hunts for food! Here, a beautiful but very poisonous Lion Fish

I started spearfishing back in 2003 when I was crewing around the South Pacific on sailboats for eight months. It quickly became an addiction at the time, although I barely caught any fish the first few months. Spearfishing is a difficult sport. You usually have to dive down in at least five meters of water to catch anything. 10 to 20 meters if you want to spear the big ones. The fish can breathe underwater, you can’t. The fish is really fast and reacts instantly to any movement or noise nearby. As free divers we are slow and not very agile underwater, especially if we want to stay long and keep enough air in our lungs to actually catch something. The slightest movement of a fin or the click of the gun releasing the spear will scare the fish away instantly.

Considering fish is our only source of fresh protein on the boat, it’s an exciting challenge.

I had done a bit of spearfishing in Thailand in the past year, but the Thai seas are so overfished that it is very hard to catch anything more than a small parrotfish or snapper. I was finally confronted to a proper fishing ground, as commercial fishing is not allowed in the Andaman Islands.

On the first day I caught a small grouper that was delicious but left us craving for more. On the second day we decided to take the dinghy further past the west point of the island. There was a lot of fish out there, but I wanted to challenge my fishing skills by catching something big, fast and delicious. A big grouper – always hiding in the rocks and very hard to catch – or a jackfish – one of the fastest hunters out there. As I jumped in the water at our second stop, I couldn’t believe my eyes : a school of small tuna was swimming right in front of me ! Tuna are rarely seen that close to the reef in shallow waters. I had caught some in the Pacific trailing a line of the back of the boat in open sea, but never actually seen one underwater. I tried to control the adrenaline pumping through my veins, gave a very smooth stroke of a fin towards the school and aimed at the closest fish with strong determination but little hope. The whole school instantly swam away from me but I shot anyway and rejoiced : I had caught one ! It was the strongest fish I’ve ever had to bring back onto the dinghy. This tuna was fighting hard but I somehow managed to pull it up, throw the spear into the dinghy and quickly finish it’s days of swimming the Andaman Sea.

That catch ended our fishing for the day. A two/three kilo tuna is definitely enough for the two of us ! I cut two beautiful filets out of our little friend that more than filled us up. We first enjoyed an appetizer of sashimi, then had one filet for lunch and one for dinner, accompanied by delicious vegetables, of which our favorite will remain the lovely little Andaman aubergines !

North Button Island also enabled us to do a bit of socializing with two French boats anchored next to us : Sea Lance and Nez Rouge. It felt great sharing stories around coffee in the morning and beers in the afternoon with people who have been sailing for years around the world… But we had to leave, to make it in time to an anchorage we had identified with Iva on the way up as a perfect place to celebrate her 26th birthday… more on that in the next episode !

Phil

Havelock

Dali and the Mangroves

Dali and the Mangroves

It was difficult to know where to begin… The Andamans are a group of Indian Ocean archipelagic islands in the Bay of Bengal. There are 572 islands strewn vertically over an area of 8,249 square kilometers, which for us meant that we had the luxury of being able to sail only a few hours before finding ourselves at a new destination.

We decided to start our discoveries by visiting some islands north of Port Blair. We sailed just 30 nautical miles from Port Blair and anchored on the South West tip of Havelock Island. Belonging to Ritchie’s Archipelago, Havelock is the largest of this island chain and also one of the few Andaman Islands that are inhabited.

However, we did not see anyone at our first anchorage. The day was spent marveling at the water, framed by lush greenery punctuated with red. We wasted no time in adopting what were to become our island-life rituals. Phil plunged into the turquoise depths spear gun in hand and with the fruits of his hunt we celebrated the first of many fish inspired feasts.

Dinner

Dinner

As the celebrations continued into the night, we made a bonfire on the soft sand and watched the sun disappear behind a few stray mangrove trees.

The next morning we moved north and anchored in front of the monumental Radha Nagar Beach, also known as “Beach Number 7”. To say the seven miles of sand, deep, flat and white, were impressive is a gross understatement. Looking at the sprawling beach from the boat, I felt dwarfed by its magnificence, in awe of the sheer magnitude of its collective beauty.

Clear Water

The lack of a coral reef allows for a lagoon-like crystal pool that touches the edges of the fine sand in calm waves. From the depths of the beach sprung the massive trunks of trees, accentuated by smaller varieties in all shades of possible greens. There were even small thatched lookout posts, which seemed comically perfect – as if the whole landscape was a man-made set, ready for its close-up.

We spent several days at this beach, both at the beginning and end of our Northern tour. It was by far one of our favourite anchorages.

Dali Awaiting a Squall

Dali Awaiting a Squall

Also a popular destination for Indian tourists, it was a spectacle in itself to observe women dressed in beautiful saris play in the waves. Returning one afternoon from a visit to the nearby village, we were also amused to find that an Indian family had made a homey rest stop out of our dinghy!

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From the beach we were able to hire a Mahindra jeep and visit the nearby Village No.3, or Govind Nagar Village. The ride inland was beautiful, crossing plantations dotted with brightly painted houses and white cows.

The village was equally charming, being comprised of a small stretch of shops clustered around the fresh market. Walking the short street, we found everything we needed and even made our first international call home! It was good to hear my father’s voice and though we have been separated before by much greater distances, finding an international landline in the village and the static on the other line made me feel like I was phoning home from the ends of the world.

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Waking up to its imposing scenery, walking and walking the stretches of sand and buying samosas from a very friendly man under an umbrella. The vegetarian menues were amazing and we found each dish delicious and perfectly seasoned with mild spices.

In short, it was hard to say goodbye to Havelock. The island seemed to have everything we could have hoped to find in our Indian travels. But this was just an introduction, and we were already short of days so we lifted the anchor and continued north…

Iva

Farewell Havelock...

Farewell Havelock…